The winters pose a serious threat to your truck. Weather-proofing your truck for winter means that you must prepare for a number of challenges that the season throws at you while on the road. It is incredibly important to start preparing your truck in the fall before winter arrives.
The winters can sometimes turn incredibly hostile for a trucker on the road. Fierce blizzards and snowy breezes blind vision and make trucks vulnerable to accidents. Along with that, long-haul truckers can also run into the risks of icy roads and frozen truck fluids.
The below article will discuss tips that truck owners need to follow late fall to weatherproof the trucks.
Maintain Battery
One of the most winter-affected parts inside a truck is the battery. Extreme cold conditions can be detrimental to vehicle batteries, you could end up needing a semi truck repair service. In colder temperatures, the rate of speed of chemical reactions inside batteries slows down.
This is not to say that batteries are useless and do not cater to rapid temperature changes. Nonetheless, prolonged function under cold temperatures can eventually degrade the life of batteries. Batteries that are halfway across their total lifespan are the most affected ones.
Having a dead battery in the middle of a dark, freezing cold highway is something no trucker wants to experience. Therefore, truckers need to ensure that the battery is in top-notch condition before peak the winter season. Not only that, they should also keep tabs on all electrical components that connect to the battery.
Inspect Tires
According to reports, tire bursts account for 6 percent of semi-truck accidents. In the colder regions, the truck’s tire condition becomes crucial for safe driving. One of the reasons that is so is that tires help with traction on snowy and icy road conditions.
Therefore, make sure that the tires do not have worn-out treads and are at optimum pressure. Driving with deflated tires with poor traction in snowy conditions is nothing less than a death wish. Make sure that you set the air pressure to the right measurement for the cold temperature.
Also, inspect the tires thoroughly and decide whether you need to replace them with ones that are better suited for winters. When driving on icy surfaces, all owner-operators must apply chains on the tires.
Make sure the Cooling System is functioning well
Many times, a semi may trouble truck drivers by simply not picking ignition. The main reason why this happens is because of a faulty and non-resilient cooling system. Since the winter time burdens the truck’s cooling system to work harder, if even a single component is compromised, the complete system will succumb to the harsh conditions.
To Conclude
The truck components mentioned above are the most vulnerable to cold weathers. Hence, weather-proofing your truck for winter is essential to ensure you remain safe. Looking to become a driver? Check out our open positions with Bay & Bay.